


Phylogeny

by Amelia_Clark



Series: Victorian 'Verse [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Anal Fingering, Established Relationship, Fluff, Good Dad Dean, Happily Ever After, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Oral Sex, Paleontology, so fluffy there's literal kittens in it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-13 00:45:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18021623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amelia_Clark/pseuds/Amelia_Clark
Summary: Although the day had been mild at dawn, by afternoon the sun had chased all clouds from the sky, to rule the land below as a fiery tyrant—or so it seemed to Dean, Duke of Winchester and amateur fossil-hunter, as he crouched on the ridge, over the half-excavated carcass of some ancient and gargantuan beast.In the wilds of 1891 Wyoming, Dean, Castiel, and their unconventional family—including Gertrude Maria, Dean's three-year-old daughter from his marriage of convenience to Charlie—dig for dinosaur bones, play with kittens, sass their elders, and generally live happily ever after, Victorian mores be damned. Plus some good old-fashioned smut, of course.





	Phylogeny

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is dedicated to all my friends who have kids. Any accuracy whatsoever to Gertie comes from hearing their stories.

_Como Bluff, Wyoming  
August 1891_

Although the day had been mild at dawn, by afternoon the sun had chased all clouds from the sky, to rule the land below as a fiery tyrant—or so it seemed to Dean, Duke of Winchester and amateur fossil-hunter, as he crouched on the ridge, over the half-excavated carcass of some ancient and gargantuan beast. Once, he’d believed he would grow accustomed to the heat and the labor required to dig for dinosaur bones; but this summer marked the fourth expedition upon which he’d accompanied his lover, the American paleontologist Castiel Novak—albeit the first to include the rest of their unconventional family—and he ended his days as sore and sun-burnt as ever. Today, despite having stripped to shirtsleeves and opened his collar at the neck, he was sweaty and parched, his head aching and his hands blistered, and he had made shamefully little progress on freeing the giant femur from the rock that held it fast.

“Papa, papa!” A piping, childish voice rang out across the dry sagebrush prairie that surrounded the ridge, startling Dean from his crouch. He became suddenly aware of a rhythmic, mechanical clangor issuing from the direction of the voice and growing louder—no, coming nearer.

With a sigh of relief, Dean straightened, wiping his brow as he skidded down the mudstone slope to level ground, glad for the excuse to lay down his tools. Shading his eyes against the haze, he spied a vehicle approaching: the Peugeot Type 3 auto-mobile that Dean’s wife, Celeste, had purchased for her own inamorata, Dorothy Baum. Dorothy, as usual, drove her pride and joy; next to her on the bench seat was Celeste, veiled against the dust under a carriage hat trimmed with a flock’s worth of plumes, and, bouncing excitedly in her lap, a little girl with carrot-orange curls—Dean and Celeste’s three-year-old daughter, Gertrude Maria.

“Hullo, ladies!” Dean bellowed, and stood with arms akimbo while the three disembarked. The women loitered by the auto; Celeste relinquished her daughter and fanned herself as Dorothy, her beetle-eyed driving goggles askew on her forehead, tucked her gloves under one arm and lit a cigarette. As soon as the child was released from her mother’s hold, she ran to him, nearly falling over in her haste, and with no regard for his dishevelment or her frock, Dean scooped her off her feet, laughing as she threw her little arms around his neck. He kissed her cheek with a loud smack. “How’s my dauntless Gertie?”

“I saw sheep, Papa! Dottie let me pet them even though Mama said I’d get dirty.”

“Oh?” Dean asked. “And did you get dirty?”

“Yes,” she said, beaming. “I even had to change my stockings.” 

“That’s my girl.” Dean touched a finger to her small nose. “A veritable chip off the old block.” 

She wriggled in his grip to look around, and asked, “Where’s Castle?” This was her name for Castiel, whom she regarded as a near-deity; while her guardians had believed at first it was a mispronunciation, it had become clear that she meant it as an honorific—that in her eyes, such a personage could not possibly live in a cottage or even a mansion. No, he merited nothing less than a palace, like those pictured in her _Blue Fairy Book._

“He’s in the tent with your brother,” Dean told her, gesturing nearby to where Castiel and Dean’s twelve-year-old natural son, Ben, were engaged in cleaning and cataloging the day’s finds. Ben’s mother Lisa had, much to everyone’s surprise, married a young surgeon the preceding month, and while they were on their wedding tour in the Lake District, Dean was enjoying full custody of the boy—who, in turn, was fascinated by Castiel’s scientific work, and a ready and able assistant. 

“Shall we call for them, or catch them unawares?” Dean asked Gertie, knowing already what she would choose; the attentions of four parents had proved thus far ineffective at quelling her mischievous streak. Indeed, she put a finger to his lips to silence him, her gaze dancing with merriment.

Hitching her up more securely on his hip, Dean put on a solemn countenance and crept slowly towards the tent with careful footsteps—although Gertie rather ruined the effect with a fit of giggles. No matter: the two inside were so absorbed in their endeavor that, when Dean pulled aside the tent-flap, the little girl’s cry of “Boo!” quite startled them both; Ben dropped the glass he was holding, and Castiel spun around to face them, clutching his field note-book to his chest as if he’d been set upon by thieves; this caused Gertie no end of amusement, her laughter nearly ejecting her from Dean’s grasp. He let her down nevertheless, and she promptly attached herself to Castiel’s sleeve, tugging on it until he stooped to her level.

“Good day, Miss Gertrude,” he said solemnly. “How do you do?”

“Very-well-thank-you,” she dutifully replied, running the syllables together into one unwieldy word. “Pick me up, Castle?” 

Castiel set his note-book down by a jagged section of jawbone and complied. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

“I came with Mama and Dottie, we’re to take you back to the hotel. Can I sit by you on the way?”

“Oh,” Castiel said with an air of surprise. “I hadn’t thought it so late already.”

“I did, Professor,” Ben told him. “Look, you can tell by our shadows on the wall, it’s past four, I reckon.”

Castiel tilted his head and considered the slanted silhouettes the canvas bore, while Dean, less adept at heavenly reckoning, surreptitiously checked his pocket watch to verify the time—indeed, a quarter past four, a sensible quitting time. “Well, Miss Gertrude, I’m most chagrined to disappoint you, but I have more to do here before returning to town,” said Castiel. “May I atone for my offense by attending you at supper?”

“What remains to be done?” asked Ben with a frown. “I thought you wanted to save the rest of the cleaning for tomorrow, since your wrist started to cramp.”

Castiel caught Dean’s gaze over Ben’s head and held it, and the heat in his blue eyes put the sun’s to shame. “There’s something I need your father’s help with. Why don’t you go back with the ladies, and we’ll walk over to the quarry afterward and ride back with some of Marsh’s men.” Othniel Marsh was one of the two scientists whose bitter rivalry had, in recent years, scored the Earth around Como Bluff, as their workers raced to unearth ever more dinosaur bones to ship back to Marsh or to Edward Drinker Cope, his nemesis in Philadelphia.

Castiel turned back to Gertie, who was scowling with all her might. “Shall we have supper together?” he asked again. “Please say yes, or I’ll have to sit with your father, and watch him eat an entire chop in two bites. You have far more refined manners than he.” 

This appeal to her vanity mollified her, although she was still pouting as she nodded her assent to Castiel’s suggestion. When Castiel set her down, Ben offered her his hand and escorted her from the tent, carefully modulating his steps so she could keep up.

“He won’t be fooled much longer, I warrant,” Dean said when the children had left earshot. He refreshed himself from a canteen close at hand, splashing water on his hands and face and scrubbing off a layer of dust.

“I doubt we fool him now,” Castiel said, “if indeed we ever have. It doesn’t take a Holmes to see the way we look at each other.”

“Oh?” said Dean, smirking as he drifted closer to Castiel. “And what way is that?”

“Like I know what you look like without your clothes.” Castiel demonstrated, smoldering like a brazier.

“Oh, that look,” Dean said. “Is that why you detained me? To refresh your memory? I’m filthy, Castiel, you don’t want me like this.”

With a sudden movement, Castiel seized Dean’s shirtfront and pulled him forward, quickly enough that Dean stumbled against him; when he put out his hands to break his fall, Castiel caught his wrists instead. Castiel spoke again, and his mouth brushed Dean’s own. “I always want you, Dean,” Castiel said, pitching his voice low and dangerous as approaching thunder. “Don’t you know that by now?”

Dean’s heartbeats echoed in his own ears with the determined fury of a cavalry charge—or was that only the Peugeot driving away? He tried to look Castiel full in the eye, but couldn’t manage it, this close, without his gaze crossing and going soft. “Do you want me on my knees, then, Castiel? I’ll do that, if you want, kneel down in the dirt in these bespoke trousers and take you in my mouth. I would love to.”

Castiel cupped Dean’s face in his hands and kissed him fiercely. “I hate to deny you the pleasure of doing what you love, darling, but…not until after I’ve bathed, I’m afraid.”

Dean pressed his palm against the front of Castiel’s trousers with a moue of disappointment. “I can’t fault your reasoning,” he sighed. “I shall endeavor to be patient, but I insist on sucking your cock before we sleep tonight.” Tugging at Castiel’s collar, he licked the hollow of his throat; Castiel gasped, his hands flying to Dean’s hips and pushing him against the edge of the table.

“I certainly shan’t stop you,” Castiel growled, and then stepped back—although he was no longer touching Dean, his heated gaze fixed him in place as if with iron shackles. “Take your trousers down, I want to watch you touch yourself.”

“Yes,” Dean said, fumbling to comply; once his clothing shoved to his knees, he settled back against the table and spread his legs, stroking his cock languidly under Castiel’s intent stare. “Is that good?” he asked, his longing for praise building with his arousal. “Is this what you want to see?”

“Very good,” said Castiel. He drew near enough to start unfastening Dean’s shirt, eyes never leaving Dean’s hand as it rose and fell. “You’re a marvel, Dean. My darling.” Dean stifled a groan and leaned his head back, preening under Castiel’s rapt attention.

Castiel soon wearied of mere observation and spread his hands, newly roughened with scientific labor, over the bared expanse of Dean’s chest and stomach, his knuckles brushing against Dean’s own. “Don’t hold back on my account,” he said, as he skimmed one thumb down the furrow between Dean’s hip and thigh. “I know full well how loud you can be.”

This was a rare opportunity, of course, to give voice to their pleasure, usually discreetly muffled for domestic reasons—as their bedchamber in the railway hotel here, as at home, adjoined Celeste’s. Now, however, the two of them were the only human beings for miles; Castiel had established his small dig site well away from the feuding quarries of Marsh and Cope. And so, when Castiel prized Dean’s fingers away from his cock to replace them with his own, Dean raised his high unto the heavens.

Chuckling at his volume, Castiel tilted Dean’s face to the side with the hand not otherwise occupied, kissed the point beneath Dean’s jaw where his heartbeat thudded like a timpani. Dean required two hands to undo the front of Castiel’s trousers enough to take hold of him in turn, but he managed it in due course, even as he gasped at a trick of the wrist that, although Castiel had been employing it for the length of their acquaintance, never failed to send a galvanic spark up the ladder of Dean’s spine. He turned his head abruptly, his eyes shut, and muffled his own cries with Castiel’s waiting mouth.

Then, to Dean’s utter chagrin, Castiel stopped, pushed Dean’s hand away, and stepped back again. Dean whimpered like a child—like _his_ child, in fact, denied an ice-cream or the petting of a sheep—and Castiel laughed again, breathlessly. “It’s O.K., Dean, I only want you to turn around.” While he spoke, he was spinning Dean by his hips and palming his arse. “I’m too impatient at the moment, but maybe I’ll fuck you properly tonight,” he said, nudging Dean’s thighs closer together and crowding against him. “Would you like that?”

“Of course I would, don’t be daft,” Dean said; he clutched the side of the table and arched his back into the warmth of Castiel’s chest behind him. One arm firmly around Dean’s ribs, Castiel thrust his cock between Dean’s thighs, mouthing at Dean’s shoulder through the fabric of his shirt. They moved together, undignified and graceful, Castiel’s cries joining Dean’s in a wanton chorus. Dean’s crisis hit him with the force of prairie lightning—he would have fallen to his knees but for Castiel’s strong embrace.

Afterward, Castiel washed his hands from the canteen, and daubed at Dean’s sticky thighs with his handkerchief until Dean pronounced himself as clean as he was likely to get without a bathtub. “And that, I believe, is our cue to depart for the hotel,” Castiel said. 

“All right,” Dean said, straightening Castiel’s collar. “Let me kiss you once more before we go.”

*******

The railway hotel at which their family had hired a suite of rooms was far from luxurious, but it was well-built and tidy, qualities which Dean had sometimes found lacking in the accommodations on his travels in the American West. When the two men returned—following an hour’s ride on a wagon with a group of tired laborers, during which Dean was uncomfortably aware that he smelled like more than sweat—Celeste was in their small sitting room with Gertie, feeding scraps of a cold supper to a couple of gray kittens; Gertie was too intent upon this mission to greet them with more than a wave. 

“Hello,” Celeste said brightly, handing Castiel the more rotund of the two kittens. “Look who we found in the stables! Dorothy’s down there still, tinkering with her beloved.”

“But you’re up here,” Castiel said, and she shot him a dark look.

“Is Ben with her, then?” asked Dean as he collapsed into an armchair, propping one foot atop the opposite thigh and struggling to dislodge his boot. He paused for long enough to butter a thick slice of bread and stuff it entire into his mouth. Celeste nodded. “I don’t know what he sees in that thing,” he said through his mouthful. “It’s no improvement over a horse, if you ask me—a bumpier ride and a fouler smell.”

“Your manners, Dean,” Celeste said with a significant glance at Gertie. Dean swallowed guiltily and tugged at his boot, which came free all at once and flew out of his hands, landing with a thud at Castiel’s feet and startling the kitten he held—which, in the way of kittens, expressed its startlement via simultaneous extension of all its needle-sharp claws.

“Papa, you mustn’t be loud, they’re only little and they don’t like it,” Gertie stage-whispered reprovingly from the carpet, her scowl an uncanny replica of her mother’s. “You mustn’t be frightened, kitty,” she said, patting the other kitten’s dappled belly, as Castiel, wincing, removed its sibling claw by claw from his shirt.

“My apologies to all, I’m sure,” said Dean, and frowned in perplexity at his other boot, stuck on as firmly as its mate.

“Let me,” Castiel said quietly, setting the kitten on the floor; none the worse for its fright, it frolicked off to join its fellow, now engaged in a game of pounce with the ruffles on Gertie’s dress. He crouched at Dean’s feet and looked up at him; Dean had a coquette’s habit of coyly glancing upward through the fringe of his eyelashes, but Castiel always lifted his chin and looked him full on, unafraid to let the depth of his affection show. It was writ there now in the lines of his face, as clearly as if it were carved in stone—yet Castiel’s expression was soft, as he pulled Dean’s other boot off in fits and starts, caught it when it slipped off suddenly, and Dean was transfixed. He remained aware of his wife and daughter in the room, the thumps and squeals of the kittens as they tussled; at the same time, he would have believed he and Castiel the only two people left on Earth, the last beings in an empty cosmos. 

And Dean _hungered_ for him.

Then Dean’s stomach rumbled—the bread and butter he’d gulped down had whetted his appetite rather than sated it—and Castiel smiled, picking up Dean’s second boot and standing up. “I’ll leave these in the corridor to be cleaned,” he said. “We should eat.”

Thus, they dined; Dean’s usual habit of falling upon his victuals like a wolf was curtailed by Gertie’s presence on his knee for much of the meal, as her young feline playmates had eventually curled up together and fallen into a doze in Celeste’s lap. Celeste looked a bit rueful at the fact, for Dean knew she could never bring herself to disturb a sleeping cat, regardless of what should occur—and so it became Dean’s responsibility to keep their daughter from mischief. Sitting with him while he ate one-handed, she was well-behaved, though fidgety, chattering away to Castiel about dinosaurs as he ate his own supper across the table (this was apparently enough to satisfy his promise to eat with her). In Gertie’s opinion, they weren’t the earth-colored giant lizards in the illustrations Castiel had showed her: “They were red and blue and green and yellow! And they had feathers, Castle, I know it.”

“Feathers! What an imagination you have,” Dean exclaimed, chuckling.

“As a matter of fact, she’s hit upon a truth,” Castiel said. “There’s an _Archaeopteryx_ fossil that bears the clear impression of feathers surrounding the skeleton, and I follow Mr. Huxley in reasoning, therefore, that birds and dinosaurs are evolutionarily linked.”

“Well, I’ll be,” said Dean. “I should never have guessed.”

“So I’m right?” asked Gertie eagerly. 

“You are,” Castiel assured her with a proud smile, “regarding feathers at least, though it would be unscientific to speculate on the color of this plumage.”

“I told you, Papa,” she said, tipping her head backwards to give him a cheeky grin. “I’m right, and you were _wrong.”_

“You needn’t sound so smug about it, my girl,” Dean grumbled, though there was no rancor in it; he brushed the auburn curls off of her face and dropped a kiss onto her forehead. Perhaps he should find it humiliating to be so bested by a child—his own father would certainly never have stood for it—but like Castiel, he was proud of his daughter’s intelligence, and her fearlessness as well.

“Our very own Mary Anning,” Celeste said from her place on the rug. Lifting a kitten in each hand, she stood, a trifle stiffly, and deposited them in a basket near the fireplace; unlit though the latter was in the summer heat, it made a charming tableau, especially as one kitten gave a yawn that dwarfed its size and snuggled closer to its sibling. “Come here, Gert, let Papa finish his supper in peace.”

“I’ve had enough,” Dean was saying, when the sound of an entire mounted regiment thundered up the stairs; it burst through the door in the person of Ben, Dorothy appearing at a more sedate pace behind him.

“Father,” Ben said, rather breathlessly, “may I drive the motorcar? Please. Miss Baum said I must ask for permission.”

“Did she?” This was Celeste, not Dean; she did not look daggers at Dorothy, precisely, but her glare had the force of a brace of hatpins, at the very least.

Dorothy shrugged, clearly unrepentant. “It’s perfectly safe,” she said. “I’d go with him, of course.”

“I’ll consider it,” Dean promised; Ben grinned widely, knowing from experience that this meant “yes.”

Gertie tugged on his sleeve. “I want to bring the kittens home with me, Papa, may I?”

“No, they wouldn’t enjoy the sea voyage. Cats don’t like water.”

She pondered this. “May I bring _one?”_

Fatherhood, it seemed to Dean as he tried to persuade her that there were kittens aplenty in England, was often a parade of questions he was unprepared to answer—and yet, for all that, it was a greater joy than he’d ever imagined.

*******

Later—when supper had been cleared away; when Gertie had been tucked in, the kittens at the foot of her cot; when Dean had finally peeled off his grimy clothes and bathed, and waited naked on his narrow but comfortable bed—Castiel knocked softly on the door of his bedchamber. “Good evening,” he whispered, as Dean let him in. “I believe we had unfinished business.”

“Yes,” Dean said, and kissed him soundly, shivering at the gooseflesh Castiel’s fingertips raised as they skimmed down his bare sides and clutched his hips. Dean backed them towards the bed, taking slow steps so as not to stumble, and pushed Castiel to sit on the edge of the mattress, kneeling to remove his boots in an echo of Castiel’s earlier assistance, then turned his attention to unfastening Castiel’s trousers.

As Dean took his cock into his mouth with a sigh, Castiel muttered an oath under his breath and cradled Dean’s head in his hands. “Please,” he said in a strained undertone. “Please.”

Thus encouraged, Dean set to his task with great thoroughness and zeal. Lacking their previous solitude, Castiel kept his gasps low, signaling his ardor instead by his grip on Dean’s hair. Dean, of course, had his mouth full, and he demonstrated his commitment to the matter of improving his manners by remaining silent—but for the keening noise he made when Castiel came. Afterward, Castiel pushed Dean’s face into the pillow and worked slick and clever fingers inside him until he climaxed, his yell muffled by down.

“I love you,” Dean said, as they curled up together under the sheets, cozy as two kittens in a basket.

“I know,” said Castiel, “I wake up every day and am grateful for it. I love you, too, despite my failure to follow through on fucking you properly.”

“I’m perfectly content,” Dean said. “Do you love me enough to let me work in the shade tomorrow? Or better yet, take the day off.”

“I’ll consider it.” 

And Dean, knowing from experience that this meant “yes,” smiled as he drifted into dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> I just want you to know that the Marsh-Cope feud is usually referred to as "the Bone Wars," and that's at least 97% of why I set the fic where I did. Also, I was surprised to learn that English speakers have been using "Boo!" to scare each other for 250+ years! People said it before ghosts did, even. The More You Learn Researching Fic.


End file.
